E=MC2 (Articles)

[Lightkeeper]

I had a discussion with my cousin a few days ago. He kept saying that energy is matter. To me that is like saying water is ice. You have to do something to the water before it becomes ice. If energy was matter the formula would be E=M or there wouldn't be two names for the same thing.

I maintain that energy and matter are different forms of the same thing and that you have to do something to energy before it becomes matter. You can turn energy into matter and matter into energy. I figured the formula for matter into energy would be M=sqrt of E/C.

What do you think?

[Engyo]

I think you said what he said in a more exact manner. It's semantics; you were more precise, but neither of you is WRONG.

[Lightkeeper]

The problem was that he wouldn't let me talk about energy. I had heard that scientists were focusing more on energy than they had in the past and were focusing less on matter. This is where my cousin said I was wrong, that energy and matter were the same. If they are the same why are we calling them too different things and why can't we hold a conversation about energy?

[Rex]

Well you can't have energy without matter and you can't have matter without energy.

It's like saying which came first? The chicken or the egg.

But energy and matter are not the same thing in my eyes. I would say all matter is tangible and energy is not?

I gotta think about this more!

[Engyo]

Sounds like your cousin likes to argue. Also like he has a strong attachment to being right (as if everyone else doesn't B^)

[Lightkeeper]

This same cousin made the statement that Quantum Mechanics is not about atoms. It was my understanding that QM is the study of radiation and matter at the atomic level.

[Runt]

I think matter is energy, but energy is NOT matter. Matter is energy in a certain "arrangement" if you will (waves forming subatomic particles forming atoms forming "matter" as some define it). Think of this as an analogy... humans are atoms (we are made up of atoms) but atoms are not human.

[Death]

Matter is a configuration of energy, at least according to m-theory.

Oh and it's e=mc^2, not e=mc2, that would mean mass * lightspeed * 2, not squared.

[anders]

Energy and matter are equivalent in the way the Einstein equation shows. Sometimes electrons behave like little bullets, sometimes their behaviour can only be explained if we assume that they are some kind of waveforms. I think that we do not know enough to explain or describe their "true" nature. How we perceive "things" depends on what methods we use to perceive them. A theory I have had for some 40 years is that everything is just probabilities of force fields, but I cannot explain exactly what I mean by that.

Quantum mechanics deals not only with atoms, but with elementary particles. A very important principle in QM is that of uncertainty...

[Lightkeeper]

Tack ska du ha, Anders. This is good ammunition.